Vehicles, such as off-road vehicles, commercial/utility trucks used in construction and by contractors, tow trucks, plow trucks, and other utility vehicles are often equipped with auxiliary systems (e.g., accessories) such as winches, plows, lights, and compressors. The installation of these accessories as aftermarket items may be time-consuming and require an activation switch that may be mounted within an interior of the vehicle to allow a vehicle operator to operate the accessory from within the vehicle. Accordingly, a great deal of wiring may be required to connect the activation switches to the accessories and connect the accessories to the vehicle battery. Additionally, a vehicle operator may be required to manually adjust winch operation at the winch, thereby increasing the time and effort required in winch operation.
In one example, remote winch control may be performed with a remote including a plurality of dedicated buttons for controlling separate winch and auxiliary operations. However, the inventors herein have recognized issues with such a remote. In one example, having one dedicated button for each control operation may increase a number of buttons included on the remote, thereby making control and remote use more complicated. In another example, a remote configured with a plurality of dedicated buttons may limit a number of control functions based on the number of remote buttons, thereby decreasing versatility of remote control.
Thus in one example, the above issues may be at least partially addressed by a user interface of a remote for a winch including a menu display including a plurality of menu items, the menu items navigable and selectable with a series of buttons of the remote and a plurality of control displays, each of the plurality of control displays generated upon selection of a corresponding menu item of the plurality of menu items, each of the plurality of control displays including selectable icons for controlling one of an operation of a winch, an operation of one or more auxiliary devices, or settings of the remote. In one example, the series of buttons may include one or more navigation buttons and a single selection button. As such, the menu items and selectable icons may be navigable with the one or more navigation buttons and selectable with only the single selection button. For example, upon selection of one of the icons of one of the control displays, the remote may send a signal to a control module of a winch to adjust operation of the winch and/or the one or more auxiliary devices. As such, operation of both the winch and the auxiliary devices may be adjusted with a single actuation of a single remote button. As such, the remote may have fewer buttons while still allowing for an increased number of remote control operations. Thus, the user interface may allow a user to more easily navigate between control options and more quickly adjust winch and/or auxiliary operation.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.